[ExI] Homeless in Hell- A Christmas Story, by Orson Scott Card

[Tomasz Rola]

On Tue, 27 Dec 2011, Ben Zaiboc wrote:

> Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> >On Sun, Dec 25, 2011 at 2:14 PM, John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> I could not get a response from the server either, and so here is the
> >> Christmas story by Orson Scott Card...
> >
> >Thanks for the repost.  'Twas worth reading.
> 
> 
> I beg to differ.
> 
> This is little different, the main difference being that the disguise is 
> much thinner.
> 

Well, Ben. No offence felt on my side and no offence to you, but I don't 
think asking people to do something positive while they can is religious 
propaganda. OTOH, if they are more willing to help because of their 
religion, kudos to them anyway, because what really counts is helping. 

At least, this is what I have read in between the lines. And since OSC is 
a writer, he simply had to dress one line in a whole story (this is what 
writers do for a living). And if he really is religious (I'm not sure, 
don't remember this smell in few of his stories that I have read) - it 
would've been a difficult thing for him, putting himself in a different 
point of view. If you think it is easy, you should try to write s-f story 
putting your narrator in the shoes of catholic bishop or cardinal, make it 
acceptable and credible to different readers and so on.

BTW, religions that I have learned about are quite easy on one thing - 
there is enough place in hell for all sinners. No homeless sinners, so you 
better watch out etc. Or else they will boil you in same pot with Hitler, 
Stalin and who knows who.

Allow me to remark, perphaps you are a bit too afraid of religion - maybe 
too many encounters with aggressive preachers. They can be funny when seen 
from some distance, when one grows enough to recognize this.

OTOH, it may be the fact that I have grown in a place where people - both 
religious (mostly catholic) and not (mostly atheists) still can agree on 
something because it is a bit more constructive to have things done rather 
than drooling over issues (and knowing no agreement can be achieved on 
them). So I perceive one's religion as some kind of mental "facial 
feature" - if a guy has long nose, you don't argue about him having long 
nose, it is pointless, it would be weak of him to change his nose just 
because people talk. It is also a bit idiotic to claim that all noses 
should be of specified length. Ditto for seeing a nose of thy neighbor but 
not yours. Believe it or not, all people have a nose - now, can you tell 
what the nose is? Hint: atheists have a nose, too.

No, I was only joking. Atheists don't have noses :-). You don't need to 
think about this anymore...

Anyway, I tend to downplay religious differences, simply because I am not 
going to allow them to rule my judgement of other people's worthiness. 
That way of thinking comes from time when I have learned about thing 
described above (doing things is more important than not doing them and 
the rest is meaningless long term).

> Ben Zaiboc
> Sorry to be a Grinch, but, well, just speaking my mind.

If you are Grinch, I should have felt robbed but I cannot see of what. 
Tell me the truth, Ben, you downloaded a copy of Christmas, did you? You 
are digital Grinch, then.

Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **